Pressure group, Occupy Ghana has revealed that President Akufo-Addo on numerous occasions ignored communications sent to his office in regard to the illegal mining menace, and the increasing destruction left in its wake.
Convener of Occupy Ghana, Ace Anan Ankomah disclosed that since 2016, the group had consistently warned about the destruction illegal mining activities caused the country’s water bodies and forest reserves, yet these warnings were disregarded.
According to Ace Ankomah, the current destruction and pollution would have been prevented if government had heard them out.
“In 2022 alone, we wrote to the president [Akufo-Addo] every week, for eight weeks. On 10th September 2024, we repeated our call. But let’s start from 28th September 2022, we wrote an open letter to the president, saying that this galamsey thing is a problem, put your foot down.”
“3rd October 2022, we wrote a reminder one. This is the one that asked that they declare a state of emergency. 10th October 2022, the next week, we wrote reminder two, pointing out the imminent ecological and food disasters.”
“17th October 2022, the next week, we wrote a reminder three, this is where we advocated for confiscating of galamsey lands. 24th October 2022, we wrote reminder 4, in which we specifically asked the government to take action on the Akonta Mining issue. We were specific, no response, no action.”
“31st October 2022, reminder five, which we call reminder of reminders, no response. 7th November 2022, where we pointed to an imminent health disaster. When we pointed to what we had seen about deformed children and everything, no response.”
With illegal mining causing untold destruction to Ghana’s lands and water bodies, Ace Ankomah argues that if this is left unchecked, there would be dire consequences for the nation.
